Female Legitimacy, Battlestar Galactica, Sex, Love, and Emotion

Theme Song: “I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar”

So, I’ve been watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica with my son and my fiancé. It’s interesting the different roles women have in this series. I’m only in the second season, so please don’t ruin it for me in your comments. It seems to me that the women in this program are either religious, sexual partners, in love, or filled with angry emotion. That seems to appear to be how women are portrayed in media, period. After all, aren’t we emotional, sexual, loving beings – and when it comes to legitimacy as leaders, we need to be spiritual and the “perfect” woman?

What is the “perfect woman?” Especially when it comes to learning how to interact with the opposite sex, this can be a loaded question. It can put a lot of pressure on women. As a woman, I’m told not to move too fast, too slow. Don’t have sex too often, too seldom. Don’t put career first: Put career first! You’re your own person; you are here to serve your partner and help him to become the man he is meant to be. Womanhood is such a complex thing!!!

It can be overwhelming. What makes a woman, a woman? What makes a man a man? In our media. we learn that women are supposed to be beautiful, intelligent, matriarchs who can heal a wound with a kiss and make our husbands swoon. In our academic lives, we are told we are independent, we don’t need men, and relationships are the balls and chains that enslave us.

I tend to think that life is what you make of it. I love my partner and fiance. I would never look at him as anything other than a “partner” in the truest sense of the word.

What does modern media teach you about what it means to be a woman? What do you think about that?